


Maybe We Don't Know What We Have Until We've Lost It

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: This Should Totally Be A Thing [38]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Happy Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: James and Olivia and the happy ending they deserved.





	Maybe We Don't Know What We Have Until We've Lost It

**Author's Note:**

> When I'm feeling blue, I write a fix it. OK, even when I'm not feeling blue, I write a fix it.
> 
> Sorry for any errors. I just wanted to give folks this happy ending. I'll go back and fix them later. :)

James watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground. The priest’s words about Olivia, James supposed he could call her that, still churning around in his head. “Sacrifice and duty,” those words had been at the core of his grave-side sermon. James thought Olivia would have approved.

On the other side of the grave from him stood Olivia’s daughter, Meg, with her children. At first glance, Meg appeared to be a taller version of her mother, but a closer look revealed too much softness. Olivia was all hard edges and uncompromising stances. Meg was soft and motherly in a way that Olivia had likely never been. And James had never been one for soft women.

He was almost certain he could feel Olivia’s steel gaze glaring holes into him at the idea he might take up with her daughter. The feeling brought the first warmth he’d had in his body since Skyfall.

The soft thud of the dirt as it was shoveled atop the casket drew James’ attention downward. As he watched the dirt fill, he saw the others move away. James couldn’t leave until it was complete. He had left her before, he couldn’t do it again.

Long after the hole was filled, James stood and stared at the new mound. The brief feeling of warmth he’d had earlier had long since left him. He was cold from his core.

Played out, is what he’d said they were. He had given up and he really wanted her to give up with him. But Olivia was more of a fighter than he had ever been. Her background much more harsh than his. When she’d told him that orphans make the best recruits, she hadn’t only been speaking of him.

He heard the footsteps of a man as they approached from the side, giving him ample opportunity to see who it was. A smart move that only one in his line of business would have considered, since the road was behind him.

“James, you should go home,” Tanner said.

Home? He had no home. He hadn’t bothered with that side of things when he’d returned.

He looked up at Tanner whose face was oddly calm.

“Well, I suppose I’ll find a hotel and then look for a place in the morning,” he said.

“You have a place,” Tanner said.

Then he held out his hand to James. There was a key with a paper attached to the ring. James took it and read the address.

“Dover?” he asked, truly perplexed. He really wasn’t the Dover type, even for holiday.

“She had me get it for you when you came back,” Tanner explained.

James allowed himself a wry chuckle. So, it was some sort of joke on her part.

“Should only take a couple hours to get there,” Tanner said.

James almost refused. He didn’t need the stress of the drive, he didn’t want the memory of her. But when he looked back at Tanner, something in the way he looked at James made him feel he had no choice.

It was dark when James arrived at the house. Even in the dark it looked exactly as he’d imagined. It was a row house at the end of a terrace. It had a small yard in the front. The second story was painted white stucco and the bottom had red brick.

When he entered the home, he turned on the hall light and looked for the thermostat. It was painfully cold in the house. Once he had the heat started, he began to look around the rooms. It was a furnished home. James wasn’t sure if the furniture came with the house, but it looked old and ratty enough to have.

There were three bedrooms upstairs. One was set up as an office with a beautiful old desk that seemed incongruous with the rest of the furniture. Another was a small guest room with a double bed. The largest had a good size bed and James assumed this must be the one he was supposed to sleep in.

He walked over to turn down the sheets to see if they weren’t too musty and might need to be washed before he slept in them. When he picked up the pillow, James was surprised to find an envelope. He picked it up cautiously and opened it. Inside was a ticket for the ferry to Calais leaving at 1900. That was less than an hour.

His heart pounding in his chest, James quickly remade the bed, turned off all the lights, and extinguished the heat. He wasn’t sure what it was but the ticket, combined with Tanner’s subtle sense of urgency, moved his feet quickly forward.

He arrived at the port and showed his ticket and his passport. He noticed an extra paper returned to him when the ticket was stamped but ignored it for now. After he had his car loaded, James went up top. The deck was vacant this time of night. It was too cold for the average traveler. James moved to the front to watch as they approached the French side of the channel. He’d made this trip before, but never with a sense of the unknown waiting for him.

He waited until the ferry was halfway across the channel, then he glanced at the paper he’d received. There was another address in Tanner’s writing. James’ heart was pounding hard. He could not even imagine where he was being sent. He’d been put on administrative leave indefinitely by Mallory, though he’d been assured it would certainly not be indefinitely. So why was he being sent out on an assignment?

When they arrived, there were a few people scattered about the port waiting for passengers. James drove off the ferry and headed south to drive the 60km to the location of the next address. It was after 2200 when he arrived but there was a light on in the front room of the modest home. He parked and followed the path from the drive to the door.

The door opened to reveal a nurse who welcomed him in French. James returned his greeting in French as well, still unsure why he was here. She asked him to follow her and then she turned down the hall in the direction away from a kitchen he noticed to his left. She stopped and tapped on a door lightly. Then she pushed it open and bid him to enter.

James stopped when he saw the room’s only occupant.

“Hello, James.”

Olivia was lying in a regular double bed. There was medical equipment present, but it was off to the side. She had only one IV that hung next to her bed, the tube snaking down and ending under the cover of medical tape on her small hand.

He heard the nurse shut the door behind her as she left. Then he slowly approached his former boss.

“I thought you were dead,” he said.

He wasn’t sure if he was angry yet, mostly he was just glad it wasn’t true.

“I was, almost,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t want you to think I was. Tanner said you were a mess this morning at the funeral. So I told him to send you.”

“The house in Dover, though,” he said.

“Tanner took care of all the details,” she explained. “He knows the safe houses and everything you would need to make it look as if you had simply gone away for a while.”

James gave an undignified snort because that all sounded exactly like Tanner. No one else James knew could have pulled that all off so quickly.

They were silent a moment and James moved to the foot of the bed.

“I’m on administrative leave,” he told her.

He wasn’t sure if he was ashamed, or if it felt like an insult that it hadn’t come from her command.

“All the better,” she said. “You need it.”

He watched her as she began to fight her need for sleep.

“Can I stay?” he asked.

“I expected you to,” she replied.

“I mean, can I stay in here, with you?” he clarified.

Olivia’s eyes opened wide. He saw when she finally understood exactly what he wanted and waited for her decision.

In a moment, she patted the bedside next to her and James removed his coat and his shoes before lying down and taking her hand in his.

“I had no idea, James,” she said, sleepily.

“Well, I haven’t been good at showing it,” he told her.

He brought her hand to his lips and then rest it on her abdomen. He meant to just lay atop the covers next to her but Olivia directed him to crawl under. James got up, turned out the light, then returned to the bed with her.

* * *

 

Tanner hung up his phone after the call with Ms Lyons, the nurse he’d hired to attend to Olivia. After thinking through everything she’d told him, he allowed himself a smile. He’d always wondered about them, M and James. In fact, when Olivia had awoke in hospital after he’d implemented her long-standing orders, the first thing she’d asked about what James, and James had been the person Tanner had been most concerned about as he’d waited by her bedside.

He turned off the light next to his bed and thought it was too bad it took them both almost losing each other to act on what they wanted. Then he went through his mental checklist before he could sleep. The house in Dover had been scrubbed. James’ passport information had been wiped from the system for this trip to Calais. The nurse, he knew, was trustworthy, he’d vetted her himself with great care. Now, he just needed to secure a good location for Olivia to settle in after she had healed.

Not a bad days’ work, if he said so himself.

* * *

 

James awoke to a warm hand skimming across his chest. The fingers finally rested on a nipple and teased it until he gasped. He was growing harder by the second. 

“If you keep doing that, we’re going to miss breakfast,” he said between moans.

“I have never known you to complain about a missed meal, Bond,” came the husky reply.

“Not complaining, ma’am, just offering you the option,” he said, then he grabbed Olivia's hand and turned her over, so he was atop her.

He reached up and took one of her breasts in hand and then lowered his mouth to her other. He sucked and teased as he began to rut against her. He moved between her legs and found she’s already prepared herself. Not really a surprise to him. Olivia was one for starting the day off right.

He positioned himself and looked up at her.

“Oh, god, yes, James,” she pleaded.

As he pushed inside her, her moans and unintelligible utterances made him smile.

It had been a year since he’d stood at her graveside thinking he’d failed her, believing he’d never see her again. Now, they were retired together in a waterfront apartment in Noosaville, Queensland. He honestly couldn’t have picked a better hiding place. Tanner was truly brilliant.

James felt himself quickly coming close. He reached between them and rubbed against her small nub with his thumb to make her come before him. Her ecstasy was always inspiring to watch and hear and he soon followed her over the edge.

As they caught their breath James was already thinking of their shower together, then breakfast. Sometimes they ate breakfast on their deck and were neighborly, other times, Olivia didn’t want to put clothes on at all, and James would never begrudge her that desire.

Today, unfortunately, was a clothing day.

“We have to do the shopping today, James,” she had scolded when he pouted over her finding clothes after they got out of the shower.

She would laugh, later, as she always did, at the way their neighbors were fooled about James’ age by some simple hair dye. And that laugh would make him sorry they had to leave the apartment at all. She’d roll her eyes and he would sulk and later he’d make it up to her.

The more he considered that, the more he thought that maybe going shopping for a few hours wouldn’t be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see where they've retired to: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-apartment-qld-noosaville-130491062


End file.
